


Life Story of a Trans Guy

by Peridaniel



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gender Dysphoria, Real Life, Trans Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 15:39:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14918117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peridaniel/pseuds/Peridaniel
Summary: Basically the story of realizing I was trans and coming out for anyone interested in hearing about that. I threw it together for pride month, since it's obviously and appropriate time to tell these kinds of stories. So I'm posting mine!





	Life Story of a Trans Guy

**Author's Note:**

> Yea I wanted to do something for myself for pride month, so I guess I'm just gonna tell my story of growing up ftm. Hope you enjoy, and I dunno, if you're trans or questioning your gender, hope this somehow helps you.

I've felt weird about being a female for as long as I can remember. I remember back during early elementary school, there was always a hypothetical "line" between boys and girls (you know, "boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider, girls go to Mars to buy candy bars" type of shit). And even then, when I didn't really have much of a grasp of gender beyond arbitrary gender roles, there was always this weird feeling I had about being on the "girl" side of the line.

One of the earliest more clear cut signs I remember about being trans was how, whenever my friends and I played little kid games on the playground, I would always be a boy character. No one really paid any mind to this; we did need _some_ boys in our little made up universes after all. And whenever I played video games where you get to make your own character, I always made mine a boy. I didn't really know why at the time. I just felt more... comfortable playing the part of a boy instead of a girl. 

And then... puberty happened. And I was uncomfortable with it. And I made it known to my parents and my friends how uncomfortable I was with it. No one thought anything of this either- puberty is never really a comfortable or pleasant experience. But I was uncomfortable with it in more ways than just your normal kid would be. 

One thing that caused me a particular lot of discomfort more than usual was my chest. I _really_ didn't like it. I often found myself sitting down on the toilet as I got undressed to take a shower so only my shoulders and up were visible and I couldn't see the stupid things growing on my chest, pushing them to the side or downwards to visualize what I would look like if I still had a flat chest, and wearing baggy clothing or lots of layers so it didn't show up too much. 

Around the time this was happening, I was in sixth grade and really getting into fandoms. I made self-insert OC's for basically every fandom I was in (which I cringe on now, but it's relevant to the story), but one thing my friends noticed and were confused by was the fact that all of them were boys. 

"I dunno," I usually said to them. "I just like them better that way."

Then they would ask why. And this kinda made me question myself why I liked them better as dudes. So I changed a few of them to female. And this caused me to almost completely stop seeing myself in them. I couldn't explain it. But those were my feelings. 

Come seventh grade, and I'm falling in love with one of my best friends (a girl, by the way). This makes me come to terms with the fact that I'm bisexual, which I had deep down known for a couple years prior to that, but had always pushed it down (heavily Christian upbringing and all). 

As I start getting more into the LGBT+ community, I start learning about the gender part of it. I learn about the nonbinary genders and the transgender community. I had always heard of trans people, but my at the time uneducated, young, ignorant self dismissed them as "sinful gays trying to fix themselves" or something like that (again, HEAVILY CHRISTIAN UPBRINGING) and hadn't really thought much about it. 

At first, I didn't really understand the trans community. I didn't think they were "sinful gays trying to fix themselves" anymore (especially considering I knew at that point that being gay wasn't "sinful"), but I still didn't get it. 

But then I started reading about gender dysphoria, the reason why those trans people were the way they were. And I realized that almost everything these dysphoric people were experiencing _applied to me._ The anxiety, the inexplicable separation I felt from my body, my hatred of my chest, the disconnect I always felt from the idea of being a girl, my discomfort playing girl characters and inability to get into the role of said characters... The list goes on. I came up with the name Daniel for myself and started using he/him pronouns on myself. 

But I was deeply closeted and afraid to come out to anyone. Hell, not even many people at this time knew I was bi. Only about two did at that point. I was just so afraid of what would come if I told anyone that the girl they knew was actually a guy. Would they be creeped out and distance themselves from me? Would they hate me and what I was? 

These fears culminated in me shoving my feelings down and trying to forget about the whole "trans" thing. Basically, I was trying to force myself to be the girl I never really was. I went through a bit of a "hyperfeminine" phase as I tried to force that onto myself. I had started trying to wear my girlier clothes that I always hated, even before figuring out I was trans, started looking at dresses, etc. I hated it, but I kept on telling myself to suck it up and deal with it. 

I continued to plaster this hyperfeminine mask on myself and tell the tortured boy under it that the pain would be greater if the mask broke and he was revealed to the world. That everyone would think he was a freak and want the mask back. That he should never reveal himself no matter how much he really wanted to deep down. 

The mask stayed on for a good ol' ever so long month before I said "fuck this shit, I can't hide what I really am anymore" and threw it off. That was when I came out to my group online. The first time I had ever said anything. I got a "you'll probably grow out of this, you're just confused" at best and was completely scorned at worst. Just as I thought.

It hurt to lose these people that I had enjoyed being around a lot for the past year, but I knew I couldn't change who or what I was. I looked through the ftm tag on that site and found a support group chat for trans guys.

I'm no longer in that chat anymore (it became active and everyone kinda left), but boy, was it helpful at the time. They pounded it into my head that there is nothing wrong with me for being a trans guy and I should stop caring when other people say there is. 

This gave me courage to come out to my best friend, who was also the first person I came out as bi to. She was confused about it and it took time for her to get used to the person she had known as a girl for the past five years was actually a guy and get used to using the right name and pronouns, but she was very accepting of me.

Then, in July of 2016, a couple months after I had come out to her, I got my hair cut short for the first time in my life. And I loved how it made me look. Granted, it was just a stupid mushroom cut, but I liked it better than the armpit length hair I had before. 

After that, more people started recognizing me as male, which made me happy. It also gave me a huge confidence boost. And over time, that newfound confidence allowed me to come out to all of my classmates at school. A lot of them were totally fine with it, and even the ones that weren't were live-and-let-live about it, which was a teensy bit surprising, being at a Catholic school. But it was true.

And then high school came along, and I fell into a very accepting and diverse friend group going from my private Catholic school with about 20 kids per class to a huge public high school with over 200 per class. I mean, we've got me, a bisexual trans guy, with a gay trans guy, two gay cis guys, a bisexual cis girl, a pansexual cis girl, a panromantic asexual agender bean, and a handful cishet people who are amazing allies. 

And that brings me to today. I'm comfortable with myself (aside from, ya know, dysphoria, but you know what I mean), I have a great group of friends both online and offline who accept me for who I am, and I offer a nice middle finger to anyone who doesn't accept me or any other trans people. 

Happy pride to all my fellow trans peeps (mtf and ftm), nonbinary peeps, and anyone else in the LGBT+ community. Later!


End file.
